GM cotton in India

February 2022

Once upon a time in India, farmers grew indigenous ('desi') Asiatic cotton.

Desi cotton was grown in multi-cropping systems which provided back-up crops if one of them failed. It could be planted at a high density to increase yield and had a short season which reduced pest exposure. This traditional cotton had good tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses, including bollworm, saline conditions and drought. Today, the crop accounts for less than 3% of the cotton area in India.

Cultivating PR

December 2015

A BBC documentary aired on 8th June 2015, covered the initiative to introduce GM brinjal (aubergine) into Bangladesh.  Viewers were told that "After a false start last year, this season more than 90%of the GM trial plots have been successful".  The source of the '90%' claim for the 'Bt' insecticidal brinjal which flashed on the screen  was "Cornell University".

Also featured on the programme was pro-GM crusader, Mark Lynas [1], showcasing one brinjal farmer's GM crop which, it was claimed, reduced insecticide sprays and pesticide poisoning of farm-workers. Interestingly, two months earlier, Lynas had published an article in the New York Times about the same farmer.  In this it was claimed that Bt brinjal had nearly doubled productivity, that the crop had been sold with an insecticide-free label, and  that it would lift the farmer's family out of poverty.

A request to the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) for the data underlying the '90%' claim elicited the confirmation that "Performance of Bt brinjal during 2015 ... are quite good and satisfactory.  Farmers got a good yield and also a handsome profit by selling their product", plus some photographs of brinjal.

However, journalist for the United News of Bangladesh, Faisal Rahman, and GM Watch smelled a rat in the GM brinjal, and made a few enquiries.

Bt GM crops aren't very insect reststant

September 2014



Bt brinjal (aubergine) protest. CC photo Joe Athialy on Flickr

Is the biotechnology industry vision of perfect GM crops, untouched by pests, falling apart?

Is the grand US vision of its GM technology saving farmers in developing countries getting shaky?

Reports coming from around the world in suggest the dreams are not all they're cracked up to be.

Pests create pests

July 2014

Brinjal, or Aubergine, is an important crop in Bangladesh (see article)
CC photo by Joe Athialy on Flickr

In 1978, US entomologist and champion of biological pest control, Professor Robert Van den Bosch, looked at the data and pointed out that pesticides create pests.

 

Chemical pesticides are a disaster for all mankind except, of course, those who sell them.

 

Then, as now, truths inconvenient to industry addressed the evidence by shooting the messenger. Poor Prof. Van den Bosch.

 

The problem, already obvious four decades ago, was industrial agriculture. Since then, all the most harmful aspects of this chemical-based agri-infrastructure have been made worse by GM.

Non-GM is beautiful

December 2011

Photo by Matti Matila on Flickr

In October 2011, an article appeared in the US press which had all the hall-marks of the Monsanto PR pen.

The 'news' is that Monsanto is going to bring us fresh produce like we've never seen before. This it will do by “marrying conventional breeding methods with its vast technological resources to bring about changes in fruit and vegetables” and “relying on a strategy similar to the one it tapped to dominate the world of commodity crops: use technology to speed up the breeding process”. All this success is to be achieved using non-GM methods which the anti-GM movement has been asking for for years and which, surprise, surprise, Monsanto is very capable of.